Wizards First Rule Book Review

This is one of those classic epic fantasy books that kicked off a remarkable new series of books (The Sword of Truth Series). It is also much more than just a fantasy story. There is some thought provoking material and themes in it. This book is also the basis for the new ABC Series titled Legend of the Seeker. I have a complete review of this book on my website here:

Wizards First Rule Book Review

New Projects and Websites from Will

A Whole bucket full of new projects.

I have been very busy doing a lot of interesting projects and here is a listing with some basic information:

Mead Website - Ever thought about home brewing your own honey wine? On my site I have all the information you could possibly need to successfully brew your own mead.

The Telescope Nerd Website - I am a big fan of telescopes and astronomy. And I really love telescopes. I have created a stand alone site devoted to the instrument. There are lots of articles and lots of information on the site including stuff about famous astronomers from the past and the present. And information about some of the biggest telescopes in the world.

The Classical Guitarist - I have been playing classical guitar for many years and this site has been around for quite a while. Lots of information about the instrument and lots of lessons and sheet music. I even have quite a few pieces that I play and you can listen to.

Some New Specific Projects you can make:

How to make a box kite
How to make a regular kite
How to make a volcano
How to make a paper castle (Neuschwanstein)
How to Make the OGRE Catapult

Epic Fantasy Summer Reading recommendations

Epic Fantasy Summer Reading recommendations

On the Fantasy Guide Website I have put together a new article that recommends new epic fantasy reading for the summer.

The alternate title for the articles is:

"Bring and elf or a dragon to the beach with you this summer"

The great thing about this summer is that most of the big authors in epic fantasy are releasing sequels to their series so if you have been following a series and awaiting the next book this might be the time for it. These releases include Terry Brooks, Terry Goodkind, Stephen Donaldson, and George R.R. Martin.

To check out the article and see my recommendations visit the article here:

Summer epic fantasy reading list

Summer Fantasy Reading for teens

I have a new website called The Fantasy Guide and it is all about Fantasy and epic fantasy. This posting is the most recent article from that site. <----Here is how the site looks

This is a summer reading list for young adults who want to explore fantasy and imaginative fiction without resorting to the current small handful of blockbusters. This list has some classics that might otherwise be overlooked, and some contemporary books that are just terrific. If you are looking for some really good fiction for the kids to read this summer this list can help.

Some Classics

A Wrinkle in Time - (Newberry Medal Winner) This is simply a beautiful book that has blazed a trail in modern children’s fantasy by putting forward a story of several children embarking on a grand adventure; In this case to rescue their father. There is some fascinating and thoughtful stuff in this book like living stars and tesseracts. It is a perennial favorite and on every librarian’s list.

A Wizard of Earthsea – Written by Ursula K. Leguin this is the first book in a series called The EarthSea series. Short and light but extraordinarily beautiful. This first book in the series follows a young boy named Ged as he goes from being a simple goat herd to a powerful wizard. It is simply beautiful and it brings forth some wonderful and magical themes such as the concept that everything (including dragons) has a secret name. And if you know the secret name you can control the thing (including dragons).

The Hobbit - This probably shouldn’t be on this list but it is so good that I can’t leave it off. With the absolute enormous success of the Lord of the Rings movies this book may be overlooked but I consider it better! It is also in the works to be a movie.

Five Children and it – This is one of the most popular books written by Edith Nesbit who is often credited with creating the whole genre of children embarking on fantasy adventures. Her books are in the public domain now and can easily be found for free. The theme of this book is: Be careful what you ask for. You may get it! That's the message in this delightful tale of five youngsters who discover a bizarre sand creature that grants wishes. There's a catch, of course: the wishes come undone at sunset, and worse yet, things often get out of hand!

Dragonflight – This book is a little more complex than earlier ones I have cited here and it tends toward being more of a novel for grownups but it very suitable for teens. We are introduced to a complex world of dragons through the main character Lessa. This book is often credited with being the book that has launched many a young girls writing career. It is the first book in a trilogy of books called The Dragon riders of Pern series.

A Princess of Mars: The first novel in the Edgar Rice Burroughs series and currently in the initial stages of being written into a movie or animation that will be made by Pixar. This is the first book in a series called John Carter of Mars and it is good rollicking fun in the tradition of the old pulp magazines. It is a favorite for young boys who like sword fighting big monsters.


Contemporary fantasy and fiction

When it comes to modern fantasy fiction for teens there is an enormous selection to choose from and that, in itself, could be an obstacle. Here are summaries of some of the more popular ones and I have also picked some that are currently slated to be made into a movie.

Artemis Fowl Series – This series of books takes a little bit of an unusual position as far as children’s books go because Artemis Fowl himself is a twelve year old genius and a criminal mastermind. The author of these books calls them Die Hard with Fairies! And the books are often characterized as being a high-octane and rip-roaring ride. It is a wildly popular series of books with a big website and even a wiki. There are currently five books in the series with the first being simply titled Artemis Fowl. The sixth book “The Time Paradox” is set to be released in July of 2008.

Here, there be Dragons – The title itself is rather mysterious and harkens back to another time. This was the phrase that cartographers used to write in patches of ocean that were unexplored. The basic premise of this story will really resonate with teens that are fans of fantasy itself because it starts with the unusual meeting of three young strangers John, Jack, and Charles on a rainy night in London. We later find out these three young men are J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams.

The Kingdoms and the Elves of the Reaches - This is a series of books that takes place in a world of magic and secrets called Ruin Mist. This book was slow to start but word of mouth turned it into a best seller. It is one of those relatively little known books and series that is very satisfying.
Septimus Heap – If magic and wizards are of strong appeal this series of books make a great alternative to Harry Potter. The Main character (Septimus) is the seventh son of a seventh son and the main line of the story follows two children switched at birth: a boy destined to be a wizard and a girl destined to be a princess. There are currently four books in the series and the first book has been picked up by Warner Brothers and is currently being made into a movie that is scheduled for release in 2010.

Any of these books or series will launch teens and young adults on a remarkable adventure into strange fantasy worlds and no joystick or keyboard is required.

For More Great Fantasy Book stuff visit my site: The Fantasy Guide

Upcoming books by Will Kalif

I have been up to quite a few different things and here is a look at some of them.
One of the biggest things I have done is a total re-write and redesign of my Fantasy Guide website. If you are a fan of fantasy books you might want to check it out. The site is formatted a little bit different than your typical site in that I have written a lot of different guides that will help you understand fantasy or find particular types of fantasy. You can even get a list of heroes and heroines in fantasy. Here is the site The Fantasy Guide
Well I have been real busy with the websites and all the various projects I have going. A lot of people have been emailing and asking when the next novel "The Left-Handed Sword" will be coming out.
While that novel is more than 3/4's done I have sidelined it for a little while. What I have been doing as far as publication goes is working on two other books.
Fantasy Diorama Book
The first book, which will be published within the next few months is a how to book on making fantasy dioramas. There just isn't a good book on dioramas for fantasy modelers, gamers, and collectors so I have been writing one. Most books on diorama making focus on train modelers and Iuse a lot of the tried and true techniques from these hobbyists and apply them to fantasy dioramas. I will let you know when the book is released. If you want to see what I do with fantasy dioramas I do have a project page where I make a three foot wide diorama which depicts the battle scene at Thermopylae (Made famous in the 300 movie. The 300 Diorama
Mead Making Book
The second project I have going is a book on how to make honey wine mead. It is a very medieval type of wine that is brewed from honey rather than grapes. Quite a wonderful drink. There isn't a good introductory book on the subject so I am writing one. For me it has entailed a lot of learning and a lot of mead making. In the past year I have made quite a few batches of mead ranging in a lot of flavors from pumpkin to Orange spice, Vanilla, raspeberry, and more.
I will let you know when the book is released and if you want to learn more about mead making check out the website I have devoted to it. There are recipes and tutorials on how you make your own mead: Mead Making
I will keep you posted on my writing and I have a lot of interesting stuff coming up in the future. I have already started my fourth fantasy novel tentatively called The Schicksaal Tree. I also have plans for a horror novel which is currently in the outline stage.

Mead making

I have been up to my elbows in a lot of different projects lately and one of them has been the fermenting of Mead.
Mead has been real high on my priority list and I have been brewing up quite a bit of this delicious honey wine. (I have been experimenting with different holiday flavors like raspberry and orange-cinnamon.)
You might have heard of mead or you might be wondering what it is; well, its wine fermented with honey rather than grapes and it is quite delicious. It is not at all like the stigma of rough and tumble horrible drink of vikings. Anyway, I have been putting together a tutorial on how to make Mead including the brewing, bottling and label making. Make Mead

My Medieval Websites

I have not posted to this blog in a while but I have been very busy. I have my own domains and some personal blogs. I just don't use the free blogger much anymore.

Anyhoo - If you want to see what I have been up to here are some links:

The Medieval Websites - All Things Medieval

The Heroic Dreams Blog - Daily information and thoughts in the world of all things medieval and fantasy

Make A Catapult

I ahve a big thing for castles and siege engines and I have created a project called the Build the Table Top Troll Catapult. It is a complete tutorial on how to make this cool little siege engine from materials found around the house. It uses rubber bands for power and it is quite powerful. It was a fun project for me to build and maybe you would like to build your own catpapult?
If so here is the link to the tutorial:

Build a Catapult - The Table Top Troll

Medieval Castles and Floor Plans

If you are a fan of epic fantasy or a writer in the genre you no doubt have a fascination with castles. I certainly do.

I don't think I mentioned it before but I do have a website that is devoted to Medieval Castles. It's a bit of a hobby and I have been adding more stuff to the site regularly. If you want to check it out here it is: Medieval Castles

If you want to see the Medieval Castle floor plans I made they are here:
Medieval Castle Floor Plans

A New Website about Knights

I have been working on a new website devoted to medieval knights. It is a really nice site and I am very happy with how it came out. It has lots of interesting information about knights, their weapons, their history and their code of chivalry.
If you like this kind of medieval subject check it out here
The Knight Medieval

Medieval Castles- A thousand Years of Mystery and secrets in stone

I have been working on a new website called: Medieval Castle: The strength and secrets of a thousand years.

On the site I have interesting information about medieval castles and how they were built. I also have some pictures that I took inside a real medieval castle that is over 1,000 years old.

The picture shown here is of a model of the castle. It is inside the castle and you can almost imagine knights gathered around it and using it to formulate their plans for defense of the castle.

There are some pictures from inside the castle including a picture of a black suit of armor I call the Black Knight.

Medieval Castles

Was Gilgamesh Real?

The oldest known written work is the Epic of Gilgamesh and it was written about 4,500 years ago on twelve clay tablets in cunieform. It is an epic fantasy tome and it begins the written word and the genre of epic fantasy. It has always been thought of as just a story but light has recently come to show that maybe Gilgamesh did exist!

In the story Gilgamesh was the King of a city called Uruk and a team of German archaeologists have recently uncovered a city they believe to be Uruk and a site that they think might be Gilgamesh's tomb! Wow. This would be a find in a couple of different ways. First of all it would mean that Gilgamesh was a real person which is amazing but it would also shed some light on the questions about the man himself. He was said to be two-thirds human and one-third god. There is also a lot of buzzing and rumor passed down that he was a giant!

Here is a link to the BBC story about the discovery of the Gilgamesh tomb

A little bit about Gilgamesh:

The Epic of Gilgamesh was inscribed on stone tablets a thousand years before the Iliad was written.

The Book Gilgamesh: A New English Version

Gilgamesh was a king who embarked on a quest to slay the beast Grendel and find immortality. It is generally considered by scholars that Gilgamesh did in fact exist and that he was a king of Uruk in about the 26th Century BC.

If you want to understand and learn about epic fantasy right from its beginning this is the place to start. There is good reason for this story having survived so long.

This epic has been recently released in an easy to read and well translated version and for a story like this that was probably told verbally for many generations you may want to consider getting the audio version -To hear this story rather than read it brings a sense of tribal connection.

(If you like the epic fantasy from this period you may want to try The First Heroes a collection of stories written today but that take place in the Bronze Age.)

Ancienttexts.org has a transcription of the ancient cunieform tablets of the epic of gilgamesh here is the first tablet: Gilgamesh

Fantasy Art School - Totally Free

I have created an art school where you can learn how to draw fantasy subjects like castles, knights, weapons, and all kinds of mythical beasts. It is aimed at the beginnner and will teach you how to draw while you are learning how to draw things in the fantasy genre.

Here is the link:
The Fantasy Art School

There are lessons like
How to draw a medieval Mace
How to Draw a Shield
Understanding Perspective
How to use distortion to draw fantasy creatures
Many more

Build a Trebuchet

Epic Fantasy and The Medieval/Renaissance subjects are closely bound together and in that spirit I have created a project on how to build a small table top trebuchet. It is a great little project that you can do in a couple of hours. This is one fine example of what medieval siege engines were all about. The Trebuchet was very popular because it was easy to build and a sieging army could find the materials to build it around the castle they were sieging. This way they didn't have to haul a big trebuchet around the countryside.
This is the same reason why it is a great little project for you to build too. It is easy to build and easy to get the materials. Check out the project here:
The Little Dragon Table top Trebuchet

The Heroic Dreams Blog

A link to my new Blog. I have a blog on my domain site that I keep on a daily basis. It is devoted to the genre of fantasy and you can find stuff about Medieval, castles, weapons, hobbies, books, movies and everything else related to the genre of fantasy.

The Heroic Dreams Blog

Some interesting stuff in my websites

I have created a lot of interesting stuff in the realms of fantasy, creativity and stuff for writers and I thought I would post some links for you to check out.

Here is a list of some of the things:

Stormthecastle.com - This is my primary website. It has lots of stuff for fantasy and for creativity. You can also check out my writing and download a free copy of my first novel "Fulcrum Shift".

Here is a direct link to the free online novel Fulcrum shift available in download. Free novel

Audio Podcast: My second Novel "Lion's Last Kill" is available at all major online retailers. It is an epic fantasy novel and you can also listen to it as a free podcast Free podcast novel

Make a video game for Free Ne of the most popular tutorials I have is the make your own free video game tutorial. It takes you through the complete process of making a video game. It even has links to the software you can download for free. Make your own video game

Classical Guitar Play classical guitar? Or interested in learning? I have a great tutorial that will get you playing. Advice on what books to get and lots of the basics.

Medieval Castles Here is a nice little site that I put together. It has lots of information about castles, visting castles, famous castles and how castles were defended and sieged.

Fantasy Swords - Lord of the rings, Medieval swords, Kill Bill and more.


Castlefiction.com The website devoted to fantasy fiction with a slant toward series and epic fantasy and all things medieval.

The Big Epic Fantasy Series List - One of the difficult things about fantasy books is the comfusion of the series books. Here is the big list of series. It has who wrote them and what books are in the series. $7 different series are listed. So if you want to know what book is next in a series or what book is first this is the place to go.

The Epic Fantasy website - The webs only site devoted to the genre of epic fantasy . Info and news, books and movies.

The Fantasy Guide - The webs guide to all the best fantasy on the net. Books, movies, reviews, websites, how to's and projects. This is your core source of info on the fantasy world.

Mianthroperspection

Here is an essay on the new word and what it means:

Mianthroperspection

Been mulling a new word

I have been mulling a new word around in my head. This is the feeling for it:

There are many epic fantasy books that take the perspective of an animal. SOme good examples are Watership Down where the main characters are rabbits, or The Mary Stanton Heavenly Horse books, or any of a number of works by Brian Jacques.

Is there a word for this? A similar word is anthropomorphism where animals take on the characteristics of humans. But is there a word for what I am describing? How about "anthroperspective".

Would be kinda cool to create a new word.

What is the real message of Epic Fantasy?

This is actually quite simple and there is one scene, with one line in the lord of the rings movie that sums it all up.

There is a scene where Gandalf faces the Balrog. He stands on a rock bridge and slams the butt of his staff on the rock and screams at the Balrog "You shall not pass"

This is the message of epic fantasy. No matter what you face, no matter how scary or how difficult it is you must find the strength to face it. Your will and your strength can overcome any obstacle or any evil.

The Only Real Failure of Epic Fantasy is….

I have discussed epic fantasy in depth on this blog and one of the basic themes of the genre is that is strongly relates to meaning in life and the search for meaning. The heroes of epic fantasy always embark on a quest to find something or to overcome the difficulties in their life and their world. Even though some of these stories are literally thousands of years old the theme still hold true today. We are still human beings and no matter what period of time we come from we are all still searching for the same things.
But there is one aspect of Epic Fantasy that just doesn’t hold up to the reality of our lives and this aspect of it is not the creatiion of fantasy worlds. It is not unicorns, dragons, magic, demons, dark lords, gremlins, goblins, orcs, magic swords or any of these things at all!These things are all of course creations of fantasy and that is why it is called Epic “Fantasy”.All of these things and worlds are accepted replacements for the wonders that we have in the world we currently live in. It is very easy to see our world with new eyes when an author paints a world of wonder. After all, we do live in a wondrous world full of magical things.
No, no. The only one true failing of epic fantasy is this:
The story always has a mentor that knows what to do and what is right.
Let’s take The Lord of the Rings as an example. The mentor in this story is Gandalf. He has lived for hundreds of years and he knows all. He knows about the troubles in the land and he knows how to fix them. He is the guide of our main characters and is almost omnipotent. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a mentor in this world -one that knew all the answers and what to do?
It is a bit of a shame that epic fantasy resorts to the presence of a mentor to answer all the questions. It is a parallel that can’t be drawn to our world. We don’t have any mentors in this world. We are all in this boat together and none of us has any more of a clue than any other.